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Charlotte, NC— About 60 trees will be spared when the next edition of Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation’s newest Get Going Guide hits the web beginning this week. The popular publication, which has been printed twice a year for several years, is getting ready to “go green” by going online-only – saving enough paper to spare about 60 trees per issue. But more on that in a minute.

The Get Going Guide will be posted as a PDF and linked to download from other County sites. The document will transform from a biannual printed magazine to a quarterly electronic one, which allows for fresher content in each issue. Inside the PDF, there will eventually be links that connect users to E-Parks for program registration, as well as videos and other interactive material.

The new online-only format will allow for quicker access to programs and events since it will be posted the day it is complete, and can be updated online instantly. Registration for park programs will be simpler since the new guide will be linked directly to E-Parks. And, for extra convenience, the Get Going Guide will be easy to download and save to your computer desktop for reference or printing.

“We are pleased to be able to continue to offer our most popular publication, the Get Going Guide, and keep residents of all ages up-to-date on our outstanding programs and services,” said Jim Garges, director of Park and Recreation. “The online version of the Guide takes us to a newer level of convenience for our customers, and to a higher level of environmental responsibility.”

Now here’s the math on the trees that won’t be needed to mass-produce the Get Going Guide.

Many major paper-producers say the average tree used for making paper yields about 90,000 sheets of paper. Given that the last printed issue of the GGG was 70 pages, and 115,000 copies were printed, that’s about 8 million sheets of paper used for one issue – or about 90 trees. Of course, the GGG was printed on lighter, post-consumer-waste paper (partially recycled), which, at the very least, would cut the need for trees to produce its paper for a single issue by one-third, down to 60. And consider how much printer’s ink and chemicals will be spared from use, gasoline for delivery, vehicle emissions, work hours, and so on.